Mets Blasted for ‘Cowardly’ Midnight Firing

On the evening of Monday, June 16, the Mets were in Anaheim to play the Angels. When Mets manager Willie Randolph returned to the team hotel after a 9-6 win, General Manager Omar Minaya told him that he had been fired.

A Mets press release issued at 3:18 a.m. EDT announced the firing of Randolph, as well as pitching coach Rick Peterson and first base coach Tom Nieto, ending weeks of speculation about Randolph’s job.

Many believe that the Mets were justified in firing Randolph, but they object to the manner in which they did it, and are expressing sympathy for the outgoing manager. Writers almost universally used words like “disgraceful,” “shameful,” and “cowardly” in their summations. “Only the Mets, who have lost their way, could make a manager firing look so unjustified,” wrote The Daily News’ Bill Madden.

Randolph’s job had been in jeopardy since the end of last season, when the Mets blew a seven-game lead with 17 games left. As the $138-million team got off to a poor start this season, the Mets have had several opportunities to fire Randolph but repeatedly chose not to.

They may have hoped that the West Coast firing, which occurred after the New York newspapers had been printed, would fly under the radar. “If you’re a Mets fan, that should make you sick,” wrote Newsday’s Jim Baumbach, “Because that means they care about their image more than their performance.”

The maneuver has clearly backfired: the Mets are getting far more media attention and face far more criticism than if they had fired Randolph in New York. They have, according to the New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro, “conspired to botch this firing worse than any firing has ever been botched. Ever.”

Two hours after the Mets beat the Angels Monday night, Randolph and the team returned to the team hotel. Minaya was waiting and told Randolph, Peterson and Nieto that they had been fired. Mets owner Fred Wilpon claimed that the decision was entirely Minaya’s. He told 1050 ESPN Radio, “Omar is in charge. It was his decision.” Bench coach Jerry Manuel will take over for Randolph in the interim.

Randolph spoke to the media while leaving his hotel on Tuesday. He said, “I'm just very disappointed that I'm not going to be able to fulfill what my dream is, which is to come here and help this team win a world championship.” When asked whether he suspected that he would be fired, he responded, “No, no. I was really stung by it. I was surprised.”

In a 5 P.M. EDT press conference in Los Angeles, Minaya took full responsibility for the decision and called it “standard procedure” to fire a manager right after a game. He said that he could not have done it sooner because he had to “sleep on” the decision Sunday night. He expressed his respect for Randolph, saying “there is no bigger Willie Randolph fan than Omar Minaya,” but added, “This ain't about love. This is about a general manager and trying to win a championship.”

The New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro call the firing “utterly, completely, disgraceful.” He adds, “These men couldn’t have been fired in New York, before heading on a plane and flying 3,000 miles to their doom? They couldn’t have been spared the ignominy of a public perp walk back east, their dignity thrown into their carry-on luggage? Really? Is this the best the Mets can do?”

FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal says the firings “will go down as one of the most disgraceful episodes in sports history. Randolph had to go, but no self-respecting organization would treat its employees with such little decency. … Now, incredibly, he’s a martyr.”

Newsday’s Jim Baumbach calls the Mets “cowards” and criticizes them for the timing. “Here’s the sick part: By announcing at 3 a.m., the Mets undoubtedly figured they'd just miss the last deadlines for New York City newspapers, meaning there would be another 24 hours before the next day's newspaper is published,” he writes. “And if you're a Mets fan, that should make you sick. Because that means they care about their image more than their performance.”

The Daily News’ Bill Madden blames Wilpon and Assistant GM Tony Bernazard for repeatedly undercutting Randolph. “Bernazard, the unofficial godfather to the Mets’ Latin players, has been a constant undermining presence in the Mets’ clubhouse,” Madden writes. “If Randolph had a problem with the Latin players … it was only because, in Bernazard, they felt they could go to a higher authority with their problems.”

William C. Rhoden of the New York Times believes that Minaya is next to go. “Throughout this bizarre ordeal, Minaya has come across as a marionette, a front office executive who doesn’t have the autonomy that was discussed before the season,” he writes. “You can argue that no general manger truly has autonomy, but some are better at maintaining the illusion than others. For Minaya, that illusion is gone. He is in the spotlight.”

After spending 11 seasons as a Yankees coach, Randolph was hired as manager of the Mets in 2005. He received praise for leading the Mets to an 83-79 record, 15 games better than the previous season. In 2006, the Mets won 97 games—tied for the best record in the majors—but lost in Game 7 of the NLCS. Randolph finished second in the NL Manager of the Year voting and was given a three-year contract extension in the off-season.

The 2007 season started well and in September the Mets had a seven-game lead over the Phillies with 17 games to go. However, they would lose 12 of those last 17, including an 8-1 loss to the last-place Marlins on the final day of the season that ceded first place to the Phillies and completed the worst collapse in baseball history. The Mets ownership asked Minaya to recommend whether Randolph should be fired; Minaya decided to keep him on.

The 2008 season started poorly and criticism of Randolph increased. In an interview with the Bergen Record’s Ian O’Connor, Randolph suggested that some of the criticism was racially motivated. “Is it racial? Huh? It smells a little bit,” he said. He later apologized for the remarks, which he thought were off the record.

After losing six of seven to drop the team’s record to 23-25, owner Fred Wilpon, COO Jeff Wilpon and Minaya called a meeting with Randolph to discuss his future. They decided to keep Randolph, but made no promises about the future. Publicly, all parties denied that Randolph’s job was ever in jeopardy.

On June 15, before a Sunday doubleheader with the Rangers, many people believed that Randolph would be fired if the Mets lost both games. The Mets lost the opener but earned a split with a 4-2 win in the nightcap. Randolph was not fired and flew out with the team to Los Angeles. Minaya planned to hold a meeting on Monday in LA and wouldn’t say if Randolph would manage the team that night.

Willie Randolph grew up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn and dedicated himself to baseball to avoid trouble. “I was totally zeroed in,” Randolph said. “I was so focused on wanting to play major league baseball that I had this mentality, this military mentality, even at a very early age.” Writer Nelson George, a Brownsville native, said that Randolph “always had that air about him, a quiet confidence. All the qualities you're seeing now as a manager and what you saw of him as a player, he had as a kid.”

Randolph played 18 seasons in the Major Leagues, making six all-star teams and winning the World Series twice. He ended his career as a Met in 1992 and joined the Yankees coaching staff in 1994. He spent 11 years with the Yankees before being named Mets manager in 2005. In three and a half seasons, he managed the Mets to a 302-253 record—a .544 winning percentage—and won the National League East in 2005.

Joe Torre was the manager of the Yankees for 12 seasons, winning four World Series titles and making the playoffs each year. At the end of the 2007 season, the Yankees offered him a one-year contract extension for far less than he had been making. Torre called the offer an “insult” and left for the Dodgers. Some in the media criticized the Yankees for forcing Torre out rather than having the courage to fire him. Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci believed that the Yankees “descended into a far darker and disrespectful place” and “let corporate cowardice be their guide.”

Carl Ware was the highest-ranking African-American executive at Coca-Cola until the fall of 2000, when then-CEO Doug Ivester decided he needed to realign his direct reports. Ivester conveyed the decision over the phone to Ware, who was awakened in the middle of the night in a Polish hotel room to be informed of what was effectively a demotion. Ware, angered by the way things were handled, resigned four days later. When board directors Warren Buffett and Herbert Allen learned of Ivester's lapse in judgment, they told him that they had lost confidence in him, and Ivester resigned under pressure. Ware was convinced to return to the Company by new CEO Doug Daft.